Hoping someone can give me some insight into the Threshold phono front ends. I have a Threshold T3i line stage pre amp and I'm looking for a 'matching' Threshold phono pre amp, and I'm a bit confused...

On the Threshold Audio site they list both a Fet 10 PC and a Fet 10 Pe in their old/discontinued area of their site. I've seen pictures of some 10PC's and they don't really look like my T3i.

However on Jon Soderbergs web site about 2 thirds of the way down the archives page http://www.rsvlonline.net/vintageamp/archiveamps.htm there is a picture of a phono pre amp that looks much more like my T3i - smaller Threshold logo etc. Is this a Fet 10 Pe?

Can anyone give me some insight into this. Recently there have been some Fet 10 PC's for sale but I'll pass on them if it turns out there is a Fet 10 Pe or some other model designation that is a better match for my T3i.

Maybe this will help. Back in the late 1980's Threshold offered two preamps, the FET nine and FET ten. These had silver badges. The FET nine came with a built in phono section. In the top of the line FET ten, you could buy the line level or the phono level units separately. Threshold called the line level a FET ten/hl (for high level) and the phono is called a FET ten/pc (for phono cartridge).

Around 1990 Threshold introduced its "e" line of amps and preamps. These have gold badges. The FET nine/e remained a combination preamp, and the FET ten/e was either line level or phono. Apparently to distinguish the two, the current Threshold company now calls the FET ten/e line level the "he" and the phono level the "pe". But at the time they were produced both units were labled FET ten/e.

Of course your T3i came along years after the introduction of the FET ten/e. It appears they share the same gold badge and fascia bolts. So where is the matching phono section for the T3 or T3i? It's little sister, the Forte F44, offered the phono section as a additional circuit board to be included inside the same chassis. Maybe something similar was available for the T3. Forte also offered the FP1, a separate phone stage in its own chassis. As you may have noticed, secondhand e line amps and preamps are a little harder to find than their earlier counterparts.

Thank you for the responses. The gold badge is what threw me. The one on Jon Soderbergs site seems slightly thinner and has the gold badge while most of what I have seen for sale has silver badges although the silver badged ones do have external power supplies.

The FET 10/pc would make a wonderful match for your T3i. It makes a wonderful match for any preamp. I am now listening to a FET 9 with built-in phono stage, having sold my FET 10/pc about four years ago when I (very stupidly) thought I would get out of vinyl (oh, how very stupid of me at that time). So now that I have discovered (about three years ago) the errors of my ways and am more into vinyl than ever, and have run through several other phono stages, both built-in and separate, that the FET 10/pc is clearly the finest of them I have heard. I haven't done any serious listening to the high dollar ones (Boulder, Manley Steelhead, Pass Ono, etc.), but I have listening to several in the under $5K range and the FET 10/pc is their better in all cases. And, the larger, newer power supply works with the FET 10/pc, as well. If youi get one, you will never regret having done so. Sweet, musical, lyrical and wonderful to listen to.